Raggdolly Prompts
by The Unholy Trinity of Horror
Summary: Flash fics for Halloween. Pic prompts can be found on our blog at theunholytrinityofhorror dot blogspot dot com.
1. Chapter 1

In the entire week you've been here, there has never been a silence quite like this. A hard, pricking quiet which seems to burst with each clench of your heart. The blood rushes to your head, feels as though it's anchoring to your skin, gathering there. This feeling has been with you all night. An unsurety. An alien emotion conjured when Angela pulled that damn board game from her large sack of house-warming gifts. "It's just for fun," she remarked. "No one ever takes this thing seriously."

Perhaps it had been true for the girls as they gathered around and placed their hands on the wooden pieces, laughing and sipping their thirty dollar bottles of wine without glasses. No one seemed to notice you slip away into the kitchen while they asked for signs of a presence within the house. They laughed when someone in their circle yelled 'boo', and laughed even harder when they claimed the piece moved on its own, but blamed Jessica.

Mom had always said nothing good came from that tool of devils.

You try to forget those words as you pull the sheets to your shoulders and turn toward the curtain covered window. There is no moon tonight, no glow or security to blanket the dark beating on your huddled form. You no longer feel secure without the safety of light, but there is no getting out of bed. A racing heart fastens you to the mattress, under those sheets.

A tap echoes through your bedroom, and you can almost feel it against your skin. Your heart pauses, skips and barely begins again. No one ever takes this thing seriously.

Another tap. Another.

Then another. With each noise, it barrels into your marrow and hollows your insides. Heat boils your tender skin, and butterflies wrack your stomach. You think of tearing yourself from that room and fleeing the house, but you're anchored.

A scratch against the floorboards stiffens your muscles and seizes your throat. You cannot scream.

A gurgle bubbles inside your mind, a clearing of a throat. Hoarse, raspy and inhuman. Hissing.

They woke me. Those festering nodules of life.

Another scratch. Clawing and dragging across the floor, under the bed.

I lay asleep under the floorboards. They moved my bones. Rattled my soul.

Weight tugged on the sheets and covers, pulling them toward the end of the bed. Your breath is barely a whisper, but fills your lungs completely. Inch by inch the covers slip from your form. Cold rushes against your skin. Fear. A racing pulse beats faster, and a six-fingered gray claw grasps the top of the bed, digging into the white sheet. The fabric rips underneath the sharp nails. Another slender claw grasps the sheets, closer

to you and red eyes appear over the edge. Peering, then full and unforgiving. A small pointed snout, then a wicked, razor-toothed smile as the creature slinks to the top. Clawing and ripping the sheets as it inches closer. The fur is in sharp points, like teeth along it's back. Jagged.

Slink.

Slink.

It hisses in your mind.

I am Master.

Nails puncture your flesh, drawing fire to the surface, and this time you find the voice that has been trapped inside your throat.


	2. Prompt 2

A forced breath escapes through her lips, shoving her from the placid calm of sleep and into the raw darkness. A haze encases her mind, and she is unsure of what startled her awake. Her eyes, unable to focus, refuse to find purchase on solid, tangible objects. No familiar shapes or windows, only a single flaming light burns in the middle of the room, lighting up the walls with a subtle red glow and illuminating a figure in front of her with streaks of fire through-out his hair. She feels stretched, as though her thin body is a leather hide between two racks, hung out to dry.

She asks 'hello' into the darkness, and the figure turns to her in response. The weight of the man crushes the bed springs under them. His eyes are hiding in the shadow, and sudden fingers on her cheek startle her. "You're finally awake," he says. There is a smile in his tone, even though his face doesn't reveal such a thing. Something about his voice strikes familiar and she struggles to find the memory. It's recent. "I was beginning to think you didn't make it. That would've been disappointing." He leans in closer. "I didn't want to find a new girl so soon."

She sees him, now; the wild strands of hair lacquered toward the ceiling, the angular set of his jaw and straight bridge of his nose between those vivid green eyes. She saw him when she sat at the bar, waiting for her friend, Lauren. He offered her a drink, along with a lovely smile. She remembers the full set of lips, and pieces of their night begin to shape. She weaves them together, one by one with efficient timing while staring into his curious eyes. I'll never forget his face.

"Where am I?" she asks, and tries her best to move, to sit up and speak with him, but she's held in place. Binds cinch her wrists together at the head of the bed. Her feet are done in the same fashion. "And why am I like this?" She moves more forcefully now, praying to undo herself.

"Don't you remember anything about last night?" He stands from the mattress, moving through the glowing red room to a counter. Several developing photographs hang from a line behind him.

"It's fuzzy," she says, and it is. She can't remember how she managed to become tied to a bed in a dark room.

"Well, you agreed to be my model for this series I'm doing."

"I did?"

He nods, rotating the tip of wooden tongs in a dish. "You were quite enthusiastic about it."

"And why am I like this now?"

"For the photos, of course. I was thinking of taking more."

She didn't remember consenting to pose for any pictures. Perhaps it was the alcohol not allowing the moment to surface. When she pulls on the binds imprisoning her she groans. "The cuffs are a little tight. Do you think you can loosen them?"

He pulls a piece of thick paper from a solution. While hanging it he says, "They're supposed to be tight. It's what my piece is about: terror." He turns toward her again, advancing with thoughtful steps.

She squirms a little more, finally seeing the forms in the photographs which are hanging behind him. It's her, posed in strange ways with make-up smeared on her face. Some are naked. Others not. Then, there are some with black lingerie – simple lace, nothing more. She looks to her body, seeing the lace with bare skin underneath. "I don't want to do this anymore," she says, wanting to pull her hands free. She tries, and is unable. The ties are too tight and pull her skin raw with each movement.

The young man is standing next to her, reaching, touching. His finger traces the line of her seized arm. "I remember you saying that last night, too, right before you swallowed my cock in that pretty mouth of yours."

His finger falls across her cheek and her lips. Her eyes widen at the sudden hit of memory. They did. "We..."

A lovely smile splits his face. "Oh, yeah. We fucked like it was the last night on Earth, doll. And, I've gotta say, that thing you did with your tongue." He closes his eyes, as though the very specific motion flourishes fresh in his mind. "I've never come so hard."

"Well, I've changed my mind, now. Could you please untie me?"

"No."

Her brow furrows, and heat builds under her skin as he turns away from her, back to the counter. "Let me go now! You can't hold me against my will! You're breaking the law, asshole!"

"You know the law, do you?"

"As a matter of fact, I do! My dad is the sheriff of this county! When he finds out about this he's going to shove his gun so far up your ass you'll spit bullets!"

He sits on the bed again, having retrieved a small jar and spinning the cap to open it. He appears amused, not at all worried as she would like him to be. "Oh? Is he? Well, then, we better make these pictures extra special for daddy then, shouldn't we?" Using his fingertip, he scrapes a bloody, creamy substance from the glass canister to smear it on her skin.

She tries to fight him, wiggling from side to side, but he manages to finish painting her lips and cheeks with the runny rouge. The wet, slick of the substance extends beyond her lips, making her seem more like a comic book villain than a model. The taste is familiar, yet strange. Metallic and chalky, like blood and cheap foundation.

Before capping the lid onto the small container, he applies the mix to himself, tracing round and round his mouth. Red, full lips smack together. "There," he smiles, "now I'm beautiful, too!"

And at this sight, she is unable to keep the little composure she has been able to retain. Her resolve is fleeting, casting off into the forsaken room she's placed in, and she buries the side of her face into her shoulder to hide the only way she can.

"Keep that pose," he says, grabbing a freshly loaded camera from his counter. He does away with the flash and begins taking pictures of a dark form on the bed, crying into her shoulder. "Show me how much it hurts."

Some days later, a thick brown envelope arrives at the police department. No return address, only to the care of Sheriff Charlie Swan. The uneasy, worried sheriff pinches the metal clasps together and folds the flap to pull the contents from inside. His hands are shaky, a result from nerves and caffeine. Endless days searching for his daughter, disappeared into thin air.

When he realizes who and what the photos are, he cups his hand over his gaping mouth. This wasn't the first set he'd seen. There were more scattered throughout town a few months back, the same format depicting a girl, Jessica Stanley, the same way. Like Jessica, the sheriff's beloved daughter had also disappeared without a trace for days on end.

His vision blurs through a thick onset of tears, and he feels a bout of nausea rising in his core. There she is, as if by dark magic. Hours, days, spent looking for her and she was there on that paper, crying. Her face smeared with what looks to be blood, and her mascara blackening the tender flesh under her eyes. He feels he can't look at the stack sent to him, but he finds the next, then the next. Each progressively worse. Her skin appears to melt from her bones. Burned. Gone completely as though she were made of wax. Chemical burns, no doubt like Jessica, as well.

Sheriff Swan heaves at the final picture, emptying his stomach onto the floor of his office. He can't imagine this reality. He can't live in a world where she doesn't exist. It isn't supposed to be this way! She can't be like this. Not truly. It takes him a minute before he's able to look at the photo again, hoping to determine it's falseness, but his eyes don't lie. His daughter is no more. A pile of blood and bones, pieces of skin and a flap of paper with the words she was great scrawled boldly across it.


	3. Prompt 3

They'd called for the girl through the empty forests and streets with loaded tongues, her name slipped from their mouths without gentleness, but with force and vigor. Flashlights shook in their trembling hands, the wintry air beginning to penetrate their wool gloves.

Her name echoed again and again. Where had she gone?

A woman, a strong arm wrapped around her shoulders, sobbed into her husband's thick, hide jacket, darkening the material with her tears. Just then, his cell phone buzzed in his pocket, and by the third, obnoxious ring he spoke into it.

"Hello?"

"Charlie?" the voice said, and he recognized it immediately.

"Emmett, have you seen her?"

"Sir, you're not going to believe this… I… I think you should come to the Banner farm. We've found your daughter."

Charlie and his wife were piled into their old, clunky pick-up truck in a matter of minutes. Their breaths were icy, swollen lumps in their lungs. A pulse drove hot anxiety to their muscles, but inside they were cold and shaking. Emmett couldn't tell them anything else because he couldn't 'find the words'. He'd simply whispered hurry before hanging up the phone.

"She's dead," the woman whispered as the truck bounced over the terrain. "Why else would he call and say that?" She buried her face in her hands.

"We don't know that." Charlie squeezed his wife's thigh.

Upon reaching the Banner's, the night appeared quiet, like any other in the small town. A group of six people had gathered around a wooden, fenced-in pasture and when Charlie and his wife approached, they could hear the inane chatter.

"Where is she?" the mother pleaded to Mr. Banner, wrapping her frozen fingers around his forearm. "Where's Bella?"

Mr. Banner's eyes narrowed under his thick brow, and he opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Instead he pointed into the dark pasture, and she could see his hand shake. For that single moment, the most horrendous thoughts passed through her mind. Her daughter was murdered, filleted and left in a frozen field. Why else was he acting like this? But, when she looked, she knew those ideas were premature.

There was movement in the middle of the field, not far from where they stood behind the fence.

"Charlie, Renee… something had spooked the cows, so we came out here to check," Mrs. Banner said as Charlie and Renee squinted into the darkness. "That's when we saw her."

"Can someone shine a light, please?! For God sakes you all have flashlights! Why isn't anyone shining a light out there?" Renee screamed.

Instead of turning it on, Emmett gave Renee his so she could do it herself. "She doesn't like it when we shine the lights," he said, skin pale and frowning.

Renee heeded no such warning and flicked on the handheld beam, shining it in the middle of the pasture where the movement was centered. She released a sigh. There, in that beacon was a naked girl, her long, muddy hair cascading down her back in tendrils, as she squatted in front of a black cow, dead and on it's side. Her hands moved furiously in front of her, working her shoulder blades. Though it couldn't be seen what she was doing, so Renee called out to her daughter.

"Bella?"

The young woman ceased her movement, tensing throughout her body. Her head and torso swiveled slowly in the direction of the small group. Her face had been cut, as though with fingernails and flesh began to peel from the deep marks upon her cheeks. Red lacquered her mouth, chin, neck and fingers as she held a large chunk of raw, dripping meat in her hands, tearing away at it with her teeth. Inhuman, yellow eyes devoured the onlookers and she dropped the meat, opening her mouth and allowing the remainder to slip from her cheeks.

Her lips parted, and her jaw unhinged as she screeched at them and black muck oozed from her mouth. A once heart-shaped face had become angular and sharp.

She flitted to her hands and feet, stepping sideways in jittering motions toward the fence which separated the humans from the animals. She screeched to the sky, then at them as she crawled and stepped. Feet over hands, over grass and rock until she reached the fence, and stuck her disproportionate, decaying face between the wooden planks. Bella's jaw remained open, that throaty intake of air cranking at her soft palate. Her yellow eyes fixed on the crowd. She was a haunted painting, following them wherever they moved.

"We hate the light," she hissed at Renee. "Turns it off of us or you shall spit ink!"

Renee backed away. Shaking, she dropped the flashlight. A tear fell from the corner of her eye.

"Bella, what happened?" Charlie asked, not knowing what else to say. He wanted answers, became angry for them.

The creature, which resembled his daughter, cranked it's head to him. Placing it's fingers into the dirt below the fence, it began clawing the area there. "Bella? There's no Bella here."

"Who are you then?" Emmett asked, and when the girl-monster looked at him the heavy-set teenager took two steps back.

The crooked, decaying teeth squished together, forcing thick, black ink to fall onto its chin. The thing drew in a long, inhuman breath before releasing it. The word on top of the airy current sent a chill down the spines of the gathered and caused Renee's tears to spill onto her already wet cheeks.

"God," it breathed, and the creature smiled.


	4. Prompt 4

"Isabella! You're going to be late!" Momma's voice is muffled through my door and down the stairs. I pray she doesn't venture up to my room, and I take a quick glance. The lock is in place. If I don't answer, she'll send Emmett to find out why.

"Just… just a second!"

I gasp, feeling breathless and exhilarated by his touch. His lips on my neck, the tip of his tongue against my throat. He is my secret.

"Will you write?" Edward asks, coveting and nipping below my ear. I cover my mouth and moan, gripping his white shirt into my hands. I feel I can't control myself or the words that will fall from my lips. He sets me free, and in that freedom there is sadness. I pull him closer, wanting to feel every ounce of his weight on me so I can remember him every way I can.

"All the time," I promise. "Every waking moment." I find his mouth again and press my lips to his. I always want him like this.

I let my legs fall from his waist, opening and giving into the thrill I've never allowed myself. I find his skin under his t-shirt, and his back is slick with sweat. I want nothing more than to belong to him right now, and when his hard jeans press against me my nails sink into his shoulders. "I don't want to leave," I say against his ear. "I've changed my mind."

I should've kept my mouth quiet. "You have to go, Bella" He leans up and moves from between my legs and pulls me next to him on the bed. I miss the nearness of his body against mine. "Out of everyone, they chose you. I don't want you to be like me." He tucks a bit of hair behind my ear and grins a little. "Stuck here in this town with nothing at all going for you."

But I don't want to leave him because I feel when I walk out of this room that'll be it. I'll never see him again. "I want to be where you are," I say, not able to look into his beautiful, green eyes. If I do, I'll cry.

"If you go then I'll apply next year, and maybe we can go to the same college."

"But you never planned on going."

"Things change. I never planned on falling in love with you, neither."

"Isabella!" Momma calls again, and my heart flutters. It's too soon. I'm not ready to leave him! My bag has been packed since last night. Some clothes, but mostly pictures of him and me, of our times together and what we've seen. The camera is sitting next to my socks, waiting for the adventures into the great, wide world.

"Isabella Marie Swan! If you don't march down those stairs in two shakes, I'm gonna come up there and yank you down!"

I yell over my shoulder toward the door. "Coming, Momma!"

Hot breath rushes over me, and he's kissing me again. And it feels like goodbye. I tell myself not to cry, but it does no good. A tear falls with a horrible heat and a pain in my throat. "I love you," I say, my forehead pressed to his. The feel of his palm resting on my hip throws me into cloud nine.

"I love you, too."

We're off the bed, splitting in two directions: me for my bag and him for the window. "While you're gone, I'll warm up to your father, get him to like me. We'll be together again soon. I promise." He's out the window and climbing down the tree that has grown up against the house all my seventeen years. His auburn hair is the last thing I see of him.

I'm down the stairs with my bag in tow, feeling a swell in my chest. I don't want to leave anymore. I don't want to be that special girl. Maybe they got it wrong. I've never been the lucky one. I'm nothing special to look at, or talk to, though I've been told the man I love. I'm not ready for any of this, to be the chosen one. There's nothing wrong with staying around here and getting married to Edward, and having lots of babies like all the other women.

"What took you so long up there?" Momma asks, resting her hand on top of her pregnant stomach. She has a habit of rubbing it a lot, saying it soothes my baby sister, but mostly I think it soothes her. It looks like she shoved a basketball up her dress. When is she ever going to stop having kids? She's been pregnant more times than I can count on two hands. Most have been miscarriages, but some have been good. Sometimes she'll lay on the couch after cleaning the kitchen and just stare at the lump. I wonder what goes through her mind when she just stares like that.

"Sorry. I had to finish packing everything." A rush of heat pulses through me, and I hope I can conceal the lie. If they knew I had Edward, or any boy in my room, they wouldn't ever let me leave. They would lock me up and throw away the key. Any thought of Edward in my future would be gone, and he'd never have a chance to warm up to Dad.

"I'm sure by now you've kept the preacher waiting for far too long. He doesn't take kindly to sorry piddlers. He's a busy man."

"I know, Momma."

"My little sister's all grown up," Emmett says, and squeezes me until I feel I can't take another breath. "I'm gonna miss you."

"Don't go through my stuff," I threaten, but smile. Everything he could find to show Daddy and Momma I've got on me. All of my letters from Edward, all of our pictures. My most treasured possessions, as I was told to only bring the essentials.

I hug my young sisters, Mary and Alice, and tell them how much I love them and how much they look more like themselves everyday. Twins like to hear they're their own people sometimes. Others, they like to know they have someone like them. They're too young to understand where I'm going, only seven, but I kindly explain I'm going to a big city far away to get a proper education. I tell them how much I'm going to miss them, and I'll see them soon.

Momma adjusts my blouse and skirt, then messes with my hair. She smiles like a proud momma would then ushers me out the door where Dad is already waiting in the truck. I throw my small luggage in the back and when we pull away I say good-bye to my home.

The church isn't much of anything. It's a white, wooden building that looks as though termites have been eating at its walls for a hundred years. A large steeple reaches for the sky with the cross on top. Before there was ever a town, there was that raggedy church. Momma said people used to come from miles around to hear the preacher read the words from the bible. I've never been inside. I've never been to any sermons or heard any words from that man they call Preacher. Only Momma and Daddy have, because it's only for the proper family members, but I'll be proper soon and I start shaking just thinking about it. My excitement returns all over again.

"Leave the bags," Daddy says, slamming the old door shut on his truck. I nod and follow them to the door. The grass has grown up around the cement steps and the porch looks like it could cave in to nothing if we walk across it, but when Daddy goes and nothing happens I go, too. Momma follows, and we're inside the small church. The ceiling is high and every step echoes into the rafters. A full congregation has formed and Momma is right, we've kept Preacher waiting. He's a pale man with long, black hair and black robes reaching to the floor. I want to giggle because it looks like he's wearing a dress. He's standing on a raised platform, slightly higher than the rest of the people, but this is because people need to hear him.

He extends his arms and the people filling up the inside of the church rise to their feet as we walk down the aisle. I recognize many of them; my teachers and Mr. Newton from the hardware store, along with some of our neighbors. Everyone has come to see me off.

"Welcome, welcome, welcome!" Preacher says, and when we get to him, he reaches for me and I give him my hand. He's cold, not at all like my Edward. My chest is hollow at that thought. I miss him already.

"Isabella Marie Swan," Preacher whispers, his eyes never leaving mine. "The Chosen One. This is the highest honor anyone of your age can ever receive." He smiles crookedly, and I don't like it. It feels forced and fake because his eyes don't smile; they seem empty and cruel.

He looks back at my parents, and I do, too. Momma has her hands on her belly again, and Daddy has his arm around her. They nod and I'm guided by Preacher onto the stage. He holds out his hand to a wooden table sitting on top of thick plastic, and on the table was the same plastic. "Sit here," he says, and I do, jumping on top of the table with my legs hanging over. I adjust my skirt over my knees, and cross my ankles. Preacher moves behind me.

"Glorious is this day," Preacher says, "when we evoke Him through this humbled girl. Glorious is the night when she has given all that she can give to us through mind, body and soul. We are thankful for this girl and this sacrifice she makes for all of us." His words echo around us and into the high ceiling. The people, even Momma and Daddy, nod and say praise.

I lie back as I'm asked to do for the ceremony and when I feel a cold touch my wrists, I startle. "What are you doing?" I ask as Preacher leans over me and unfastens a hidden cuff, anchoring my arm to the table and squeezing me tight. My heart begins to bump harder into my chest and I look to Momma. She smiles then mouths you were born for this.

"No," I say. "No!" I begin to kick and wiggle against that table, while Preacher shushes me. I don't listen to him! I won't listen to him! I want Edward! I just want Edward! I call out his name, but I know he can't hear me. We're too far away from the houses to be heard by anyone. "Momma! Daddy! What are you doing? Why are you doing this?"

Preacher tucks a large cloth between my teeth and ropes it around my head. I can no longer speak, but I can scream. That's what I do. I scream while the people I've known all my life don't care. They do nothing to help me. Instead they start to babble strange things, even Momma and Daddy!

A low bell sounds through the church, and I look to my feet, seeing the bell ringer. Mr. Cullen! Edward's dad! Even he's in on it!

"Hail, Satan!" Preacher says.

"Hail, Satan!" the church follows. Their voices stay put in the rafters above our heads and linger there, refusing to come down. I feel fire begin to crush my insides as tears form in my eyes. The want to cry stings my throat.

"We offer this girl as sacrifice to You! Take this sinless girl and twist her bones so You won't twist ours!" Preacher says and I squirm again. "Sup on her flesh as we will in Your name, for she is whole and good for the roast! Hail, Satan!"

"Hail, Satan!"

Preacher turns away and then when he's by my side again, he's holding a gleaming silver tool. I scream at him, knowing he means to inflict pain. He presses the sharp blade to my blouse buttons and pops them off, one by one. I want to cover myself, but I can't. I can only cry and hope they give me some mercy, to stop before it even begins.

I scream at the fire on my stomach when he presses down. It lasts forever! It burns when he slides the blade across my skin. There is pressure there, inside my belly and I can feel it in my spine. I see flashes of light in my eyes, and then, like it never happened, it doesn't hurt anymore. Edward's there, whispering in my ear saying he would see me soon. I see my parents, rocking to and fro in their chairs, their mouths moving with the people behind them. I don't understand them or what they're saying. I don't know what's going to happen, but I know for sure I was never meant to leave this town, and I wasn't meant to stay in it neither.


End file.
